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Acoustics '17 Boston

Jon G. Olsen attended the 3rd joint meeting Acoustics'17 in Boston (Acoustical Society of America and the European Acoustics Association), and presented the paper "The acoustics of rooms for music rehearsal and performance - the Norwegian approach" on Monday 26th July 2017.

Foto. Ola Einbu, Romerikes Blad

Each week local music groups in Norway use more than 10.000 rooms for rehearsal and concert, many of the rooms are in schools. The size of the rooms vary from under 100 m3 to over 10.000 m3. The users cover a broad variety of music ensembles, mostly wind bands, choirs and other amateur ensembles.

Since 2009 the Norwegian Council for Music Organizations («Norsk musikkråd») has completed more than 500 room acoustical measurement reports on rooms used for rehearsal and concert. The measurements include reverberation time, the strength parameter G and background noise. All the reports are made available online in a Google Map. The analysis shows that 85% of the rooms do not comply with the Norwegian Standard NS 8178:2014 and are evaluated more or less unsuitable for the purpose for acoustical reasons. The important criteria are volume, room dimensions, reverberation, acoustic treatment of surfaces, and background noise. In particular, the importance of volume is clearly documented. Analysis of room strength indicates that this also is an essential factor for this type of rooms. The systematic collection of acoustic reports gives important background for recommendations on how to build or refurbish rooms for music in schools and cultural buildings.